2013/2 Snowed in Yet Again.(And Again, and Again!)

Had several great days skiing in Val Thorens, the highlight being the trip through the Trois Vallees to Meribel and Courcheval and back. Brilliant weather, fantastic skiing, the snow squeaky and crunchy, tired legs. We really enjoy touring around new skifields, sort of makes an adventure of it. We seem to go for miles. I need to get one of those apps where you can track where you have been, how far, how fast, how high etc.

 Snow, snow and more snow seems to be the story of this ski trip. Great for when you can ski, but being fair weather skiers these days there have been a lot more non-ski days than ski days. Everywhere we go we get another new dump of snow  and spend lots of time digging out, keeping pipes unfrozen,  engine responding etc. All very pretty, but starts to wear thin after a while. Even staying in the valley at Bourg St Maurice it snowed. Stan is warm and cosy and we get out and about, the odd Plat du Jour in a cosy restaurant. We seem to fill in the days quite happily. Have covered a few resorts now, Val Thorens, Meribel, Courcheval, Les Arcs, La Plagne with some epic skiing in-between the snow dumps. Hope to do a few more if it stops snowing!

Saturday is changeover day in ski resorts. A great day to ski –if the weather is fine – because people are either coming or going, but not skiing. The streets and supermarkets are thronged with confused tourists, tour buses blocking the way, baggage everywhere. We have also learned not to travel on changeover day – taking over 3 hours to cover 30kms between Bourg St Maurice and Moutiers after fetching Katie from Tignes where we delivered her earlier in the week to watch the X Games (all that impossible stuff in the air). Everyone was full of advice after the event –“Mais bien sur Madame, on voyage jamais le  Samadi!”

Sunday night is the big night out at Val Thorens (according to our young informers), because by then the new punters know their way around and hit the night clubs. Again the streets are thronged, not that we know much about it, it starts late and you really shouldn’t partake if you are over 30. The nightclubs are often underground and we wouldn’t even know they existed if we didn’t have young people to inform us. Kind of like a whole other world going on. Our apres ski consists of the odd drink in a bar and tucked up inside before dark.

One unlikely advantage of all this snow is that we don’t have to set the alarm any more as we regularly get awakened by the boom of avalanche detonations. Sometimes big enough to make the van shake. Avalanche risk is huge at the moment, someone died at Les Arcs yesterday, the next resort to us. Not much risk for us as we haven’t skied for 3 days.

We are in a great park at La Plagne right now. A good place to be marooned again! Great view, ski in, ski out to our door, fireworks right outside. Hope to report more skiing, less snow next time. At least David’s new shovel is earning its keep.

By the way our phone contact in Europe is +447799740394

2013/1 Off Again but snowed in.

Mid March and here we are snowed in at Val Thorens 2300m altitude.  Why are we here – to ski but especially Val Thorens, as Katie is working in the ski shop of the 5 star Altapura hotel.   So we have been here few days and met Katie, seen her apartment where 5 of them share the less than 30 square metres – luckily they (Norwegian, Aussi and a Kiwi friend Elli), all get on well and together with the other apartment dwellers seem to lead a very full social life in the middle of the night. However it’s the skiing that marks Val Thorens out, highest resort in the Alps, great snow and links the other stations in the valley and links to the ‘Trois Vallees’.  So far we have only skied a couple of days since arriving 4 days ago, but what skiing – yesterday up in a 150 person telepherique to 3,200m to ski down and then in the afternoon again to 3,230m and down and into another valley to the South – great day, sore muscles.

Val Thorens being a recent ‘designer’ resort makes it easy to ‘ski out-ski in’ from all the hotels etc.  The resort is built on a hillside and it seems like a 1,000 m climb to go from our parking up to Katie’s apartment but through covered passages, past the maximum of shops and cafes, especially when you are over 2,000m up (and not as fit as we had hoped).

Departure from NZ in the middle of the night and arrival in Hong Kong was all normal except for manoeuvring the bags which has set David’s shoulder tendon healing back a month or two. The drive from the now remote airport is pleasant enough before arriving amongst the wall to wall sky scrapers and settled into the 28 th floor of our hotel at North Point.  One of the challenges is getting the public transport – the tickets on the metro, the pay as you leave on the trams.  We took a fancy to the trams to and from the centre to our hotel you can see the world and pay only NZ$50c for Joanna and a half that for the old man David.  English being a official language helps navigation and all the traditional British names for roads and arrears.  Most of the sightseeing was via Big Bus ‘Hop on, Hop off’ system over two days. We saw most of the sights on the island including the floating village at Aberdeen Harbour and the forgettable Stanley Market.  However the weather did not help with mist and light rain all the time – the visit up the steep tram to the Peak to see the harbour spread out below only revealed the tops of the buildings.  Of course we had to sample the cuisine and one memorable lunch was in a back street very close the commercial centre with it’s big flash buildings (not sure in hindsight we would choose to eat at so dirty a table/environment – but it was tasty, cheap and there were no nasty consequences. Otherwise we chose a recommended restaurant for a dinner and again for a Yum Cha lunch, crowded, animated and tasty. Some time in the markets on Kowloon, can’t believe how so many people can live in such a small space with tall apartment blocks old and new.  Did not try Macao as weather no good and we decided better things to see in HK.  Overall the impression of so many people, rich and poor in such a small space.

And so to England and down to Hastings to stay with Maureen. David managed his to take his traditional walk over the Firehills with Maureen and her dogs, visit Joanna’s old friend Pauline, see Max and Lucy to talk of their Canal boat plans over a pint down town, take a look at John’s Southerly 100 yacht and of course set up Stan with water and provisions and in 5 days we were away. The Channel crossing was special – calm sea but thick fog with fog horns blasting every minute.  In order to meet Katie on her days off we drove straight down to the Alps but avoiding the French toll roads by passing through Belgium and Luxemburg to take advantage of their free motorways.

And so this is where we find ourselves snowed in.  The parking at Val Thorens is right in town and hence expensive although with great views BUT no electricity. The temperature is minus 21 degrees C with a wind chill factor of –30.  All the water systems are frozen up, we use water collected in a container.  Luckily we have gas heating but Stan is far from airtight.  The engine was hard to start yesterday and we need it to charge the house battery for lighting etc, neighbours have portable generators, but we are ill prepared.  Everything around is frozen, has Stan got the right anti freeze for this weather, is the diesel filled up in Luxembourg OK for these low temperatures.  The sun is not far away we will have to borrow a shovel to move, in mid March two years ago it was sunshine and snow. Can  we start the engine charge the batteries !!!!

  Ho hum watch this space.

!!!!!!